Chapter Text
“Yeah, lamb’s blood should do the trick. Yeah, you bet. Say hi to Taylor for me. Uh, huh. Bye.”
Sam sets the phone down, and Dean grins at him from across the way, then strums a chord.
“Who you gonna call? Winchesters!”
Sam snorts and leans back in his chair, “Ever think we would end up being Bobby?”
“Bobby’s we ain’t. Man would swat you round the head for even thinking it,” Dean says, plucking something Sam isn’t sure is a real song.
“I’m thinking burritos for dinner. We’ve got the stuff, right?” Sam asks, shuffling papers around and closing tabs on his laptop.
Dean shrugs, “Should. Might be low on cheese, but we can work with that.”
Sam stands up and his head makes him sit back down.
“Vision?” Dean asks, already fading.
Sam nods, and then the world shifts around him.
He’s in an antique store. It’s familiar. He knows that jukebox.
An old guy, wizened, turns and looks at him like he can see him.
“Well,” the owner says, “what are you waiting for?”
His vision goes white again and then...
Sam slips back out. Dean is looking at him expectantly.
“Hunt?” Dean asks, and Sam’s not surprised that he’s a bit excited. They’d just done their second back-in-the-groove hunt last week, and it went as well as could be expected. Better, actually, now that they’re back on the same page for the most part.
“Uh, no? You uh,” he blinks rapidly, trying to steady the world, “You remember that antiques guy? In, uh, Calico Rock?”
Dean frowns, “Yeah?”
“I was back in the shop, but uh. The guy saw me? I don’t…”
“Someone saw you while you were in a vision? Does that ever happen?”
“No,” Sam says, “not really.”
“Well then, what the hell?”
Sam shrugs, “Know as much as you do.”
Dean rolls his eyes at the universe in general and starts limping toward the kitchen. It’s a lot less noticeable when he tries, but here at home he limps to his heart’s content.
“I’ll get the burritos going. You stay there and, I dunno, try to figure it out.”
“That’s not all,” Sam blurts out, flipping over some papers, “I think… I think we should check it out.”
“What, the antiques store? Again?” Dean asks, face wrinkled in confusion.
“Uh, yeah. I think… I think he was talking to me. He asked me what I was waiting for.”
“Well,” Dean says, stymied, “that’s not creepy at all.”
Sam huffs at Dean, and picks up his phone when it buzzes at him. It’s a text from Jody.
You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step—MLKJ
Hope all’s well with the Winchesters. Do you have Christmas plans?
He smiles and leaves it open to the message so he can respond.
“I’m telling you, I think we should check it out."
He texts back thanks Jody. Not sure. Probably not.
Dean face twitches up into a smile, “I’ll text Garth and let him know we might not make it out.”
“Good plan.”
Dean nods and picks up his phone to start texting. Samheads into his room to start packing. The pictures on the walls—him and Dean, him and Dean and Bobby, a copy of the picture Dad kept in his journal—gleam when he flicks on the light. His new bed takes up way too much space, but it’s easier for when Dean and him end up crashing there after binging something on Netflix.
He pulls out his duffel and starts loading it up.
Life’s okay. He’s okay. They’re healing.
And Dean’s left the dumb triceratops in his underwear drawer again. Sam considers making fun of him for his awful hiding spaces, but decides leaving it hanging from the ceiling fan in Dean’s room to find when they get back from the hunt is a better option.